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About this project

With just a week to go we are funded!! With the goal met, I am taking this opportunity to set a new funding goal of $6,000. With all the love and support this project has garnered so far let's see if we can push it that much further. The video itself has been viewed over 1,500 times since this project was launched on November 12. Thank you to EVERYONE who has watched, shared, contributed & appreciated Tin,Sin. Please continue to spread it around for one more week!! EVERY DOLLAR COUNTS!

The current project ‘Tin, Sin & Kinship’ has been building
steam since 2008. The focus of the project is to
create a seductive visual testament to radical queer and artistic
subcultures within the United States, utilizing the 19th century Wet Plate Collodion photographic process.

This vibrant yet scattered
community has descended from a long line of society's misfits. We
proudly carry on the lineage of hobos, queers, deviant artists, street
musicians, sex workers, anarchists, political subversives and
survivors.

This photographic exploration has cris-crossed the United States
eight times in the past 4 years. It was hatched in a backyard in West Oakland, passed
through the copper mines of Bisbee, Arizona, danced in the streets of New Orleans
and had it's breath taken away in the woods of Tennessee. My intention
is to continue this exploration back in New Orleans Louisiana this winter. I will be
taking things a step further with a larger camera, creating 8x10
black glass ambrotypes and aluminum tintypes in addition to my 5x7 work. I am going back to the south with the same fundamental project focus, whilst broadening my visual perspective to the city and surrounding landscape.

'Tin, Sin' has been completely self-funded thus far. I
have arrived at a place where I am reaching out to a greater community
to help fund the next leg of this journey so that I may delve into it
over the next several months, unhampered by concerns for funding. My kickstarter goal is set at $3,000 - this is the shoestring budget to make this project successful- it would be amazing to raise more. So please be generous if you can and spread the word about this project if it inspires you or touches your heart.

This Kickstarter money will help fund -

- Travel costs back to Louisiana from Port Townsend Washington

- Chemistry and supply expenses for the next 3 months

- A custom made wet plate camera back for an early 20th century Rochester Optical Co. 8x10 view camera & 2 new 8x10 chemistry tanks, along with other upgrades to an 8x10 set-up.

- Maintenance & repair of current equipment.

Any and all support of this project is appreciated beyond words.

Thank you! - Dinah

A vigilant search through the pages of history will produce a small but beautiful record of our radical ancestors. The surviving tintypes, Daguerreotypes & carte-de-visites of these courageous 19th century outsiders are precious keepsakes whose true stories are often left to our ravenous imaginations.The pictures in this series follow the example of these artifacts and pay homage to the unconventional beauty created by this ancestry. We honor the rich creative velocity sparked by living beyond social boundaries.

The chosen medium for this project is the historic art of wet plate collodion tintype photography, circa 1850. This medium was chosen for it's ghostly and timeless aesthetic and allows the photographer a direct tie to the roots of photography, infusing the work with a reverence for the history of the medium.

The dedication and surrender involved in this process create images that indeed seem to capture a small piece of the soul, as skeptics at the dawn of photography speculated. In order to have ones picture taken, this medium asks the subject to feign a corpse like state for seconds on end. Meanwhile whatever available daylight is reflected directly into the subject’s eyes to be gathered through the lens onto a freshly poured plate of collodion and silver. This process can be enlightening as well as excruciating. Ten seconds rarely seems so long as when you are poised in front of the camera.

The picture fashioned from this challenge bestows upon the sitter an image with grand possibility. Some subjects find a never before seen resemblance to family members photographed in the same style 150 years ago. Others find personal revelation of their own beauty and nobility in seeing their reflection manipulated by the passing of stubborn seconds and the ethereal meandering of precious metals.

Like it’s subject matter, the project itself tends to wander... Be forgotten for a while or cast aside out of frustration. It has been put on hold for work and exploited in bouts of orgasmic creativity. It will offer up the mediocre as well as the brilliant. It will seek out and record things that do not want to be lost.

Once this project gets to a place where I feel it is a complete and solid body of work I intend
to put together a book with the publisher
Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness - http://www.tangledwilderness.org/

Risks and challenges

Doing the Wet Plate method is always a risk and a challenge. It is a very fickle process in terms of chemistry and light demands. Sometimes you work all day just to get a single good picture. Other days they come easily or not at all. Hence the name "Fickle Mistress Photography."

I used the opportunity of this kickstarter video to showcase the work I have already done and to instill confidence in my funders that I am capable of creating more of this work.

FAQ

Rewards

Pledge $10 or more

A limited edition Tin, Sin & Kinship postcard signed, numbered and sent through the real old fashion mail!

Estimated delivery:Jan 2013

Ships anywhere in the world

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Pledge $30 or more

16 backers

A limited edition postcard as well as a 2 x 3.5 aluminum tintype reproduction signed & numbered.

Estimated delivery:Jan 2013

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Pledge $50 or more

24 backers

An original 5x7 tintype taken in New Orleans especially for you - with a postcard of course.

Estimated delivery:Jan 2013

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Pledge $100 or more

5 backers

An original one of a kind 8x10 tintype yet to be taken in New Orleans LA especially for you.

Estimated delivery:Feb 2013

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Pledge $150 or more

5 backers

A first edition signed copy of the yet to be published book 'Sin,Tin & Kinship'* as well as a one of a kind 8x10 Tintype of New Orleans.

*Please note this book is not yet published and therefore will arrive at a much later date than the rest of your rewards.

Estimated delivery:Feb 2013

Ships anywhere in the world

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Pledge $250 or more

1 backer

A first edition signed copy of the yet to be published book 'Sin,Tin & Kinship'* as well as a one of a kind 5x7 Tintype of New Orleans, housed in an elaborately handcrafted frame by the majestic hands of New Orleans woodworker Owen Feldbaum. *Please note this book is not yet published and therefore will arrive at a much later date than the rest of your rewards.

Estimated delivery:Apr 2013

Only ships to: United States

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Pledge $350 or more

0 backers

A first edition signed copy of the yet to be published book 'Sin,Tin & Kinship'* as well as a one of a kind original 8x10 Tintype of New Orleans housed in an elaborately handcrafted frame by the majestic hands of New Orleans woodworker Owen Feldbaum.

*Please note this book is not yet published and therefore will arrive at a much later date than the rest of your rewards.

Estimated delivery:Apr 2013

Only ships to: United States

You selected

Pledge $450 or more

1 backer

If you reside in or around New Orleans, LA or Port Townsend Washington I am offering an all day photo shoot in your choice of location (limit one). As many photos as we can take from 10 AM till the light wanes (limit three 8x10's, endless 5x7's). As many people as you would like to bring along. Wardrobe changes encouraged... etc.